


Dexterity

by achievemenhunter



Series: The Agency (Spy AU) [5]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M, blood/gore, moderate descriptive violence, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 02:34:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1452280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achievemenhunter/pseuds/achievemenhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic response to an anonymous prompt over on tumblr asking how spyAU!Ryan lost his hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dexterity

**Author's Note:**

> First installment of the fic giveaway over on tumblr (if you have a prompt, please send it to me!) Anonymous prompt for the Freewood spy AU, specifically how Ryan lost his hand. I was planning to write this eventually anyway, so it ended up running a little long. 
> 
> Set somewhere between Situation and Implications. Content warnings for moderate descriptive violence, blood/gore, and a small sexual reference at the end.
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy!

Ryan darted around the construction equipment, barely more than the suggestion of a shadow as he dodged his pursuers. He cursed silently as he accidentally splashed into a shallow puddle, invisible in the dark, and heard the footsteps of the men looking for him change direction. Ducking low, Ryan wound through the paths left between the different pieces of equipment, switching on random machines as he dashed past them. They roared to life, engines humming and blades spinning, now a wood chipper grinding away at nothing. He smiled grimly at the confused shouts of the men tailing him, just audible over the din of the active machinery.

 

"Gavin, how much longer do you need?" Ryan raised his voice as much as he dared, holding one hand to his earpiece as he peered around the body of a forklift.

 

_"'Bout three more minutes should do it. What's all that noise?"_

 

 _"Ryan led them next door and turned on all the goddamn construction equipment."_ Michael's irritated voice filled their earpieces. _"What part of_ covert operation _is so fucking hard for you to understand?"_

 

"Just trying to make sure they can't hear me," Ryan replied mildly as he slipped around the side of the forklift, eyes lighting upon two men with their backs to him. He crept up behind them as they slowly swept over the area, investigating their surroundings in hopes of finding the man that they didn't realise was sneaking up on them. Ryan brought their oversight to their attention by slamming their heads together. One of them slumped to the ground, instantly unconscious.

 

The other man staggered to the side, and Ryan lunged after him, arm slipping easily around the other man's neck and squeezing. Ryan waited for the man to go limp, then lowered him down next to his unconscious teammate, making sure both of them wouldn't be immediately seen if any of the others went that way.

 

_"I count four more, Ryan. There's a chance there might be more, though, so be careful."_

 

A smirk curled the corner of the agent's mouth. "So you don't know how many are actually left? That's comforting."

 

_"I can only get one angle of the construction site, asshole. It's hard to see around all the equipment."_

 

"What happened to all the secret cameras that're supposed to be set up for the mission?"

 

 _"They've all got good angles of the building that Gavin's in. You know, the one_ you're _supposed to be in too? No one asked you to go running around playing construction worker."_

 

Ryan grunted as he found and grabbed another of his would-be stalkers from behind, shoving a knife into the man's side and covering his mouth until he stopped struggling. Michael made an exasperated noise as Ryan placed the body on the ground and moved on, almost immediately finding another target.

 

Another quick flicker of his knife, another body down.

 

_"Wait, Ryan, backtrack - I don't have a visual on you-"_

 

One disadvantage of using the sound of machinery to cover up the sound of his own movements was that Ryan was, in turn, unable to hear the movements of his remaining pursuers until one of them was directly behind him.

 

Instinctively, he dropped into a crouch and lunged to the side, narrowly avoiding getting caught in a hold. Luckily, it seemed that the two men left still searching for him had split up. Ryan, of course, was fairly confident he would have done fine with two on one odds, but he wasn't going to complain if things were made easier for him.

 

The man was quicker than he'd anticipated, though, catching Ryan off guard as the agent fell back into a fighting stance. The man shoved at him, throwing him off-balance and knocking him against some of the machinery. Ryan recovered just as the man charged at him, and they grappled, stumbling into various pieces of construction equipment as they each fought for dominance.

 

With an almighty heave, the man sent Ryan sprawling against the casing of a brick saw, and immediately pressed the advantage, pulling Ryan's left arm out straight and holding it above the whirring saw blade. Ryan grunted and tried to throw the man off him, but his attacker had him too well pinned. Bent backwards over the saw's casing as he was, there was no way for Ryan to get the leverage he needed to break free. He attempted a head-butt, but the man's face was just too far away. His arm was starting to shake with exertion as he resisted the other man's downward force, and already he could feel his arm gradually inching towards the saw.

 

Even though he knew it wasn't, the whine of the saw seemed to be getting louder as the other man bore his weight down. Ryan pushed back with all his strength, but he was at such an awkward angle that it was impossible to stop the other man from slowly pushing his arm closer and closer to that shrieking, spinning blade.

 

There was no stopping what was going to happen, and Ryan would be damned if it didn't at least happen on his terms.

 

He let the tension in his arm go. Suddenly not meeting the expected resistance, the other man lurched forward and pushed Ryan's arm down on the saw, slicing through through sinew and muscle and bone in one clean go. Ryan howled in pain but kept enough of his wits about him to pull his other hand free of the man's surprised grip, shoving the other man into the blade, chest-first. There was a wet, meaty sound and the man screamed, the mechanisms of the saw growling in protest as they were clogged with flesh and gristle.

 

Ryan let out a soft groan, remaining fingers fumbling clumsily for the pocket of his suit that contained zip ties, pulling one out after a few false starts. Ignoring the blood pulsing from the stump where a few seconds previously the lower half of his left forearm had been, he shakily threaded the end of the zip tie through its eyelet using his teeth, then slipped the loop onto the stump and pulled tight.

 

He took several deep, heaving breaths before he felt able to answer the two voices screeching in his ear, as both Michael and Gavin frantically demanded to know what had happened.

 

"I'm fine," Ryan managed in a voice that was somehow similar to normal. "Little bit tougher than I was expecting. How many more, Michael?"

 

_"Just one, from what I can tell. Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened? Why'd you scream like that?"_

 

Ryan pulled out his gun as he noticed nearby movement. All the noise would have definitely attracted the remaining man's attention, and Ryan was not going to let himself pass out before the job was done.

 

"I'll explain later." His voice dropped to a low whisper, letting Michael know that he couldn't talk further. His eyes flicked to his left, where something vaguely man-shaped crept forward a few paces. Ryan hid himself in the shadow of the giant front left tire of one of the construction vehicles.

 

Gavin hurriedly chimed in. _"Hack's done. Hang on, Ryan, I'm heading out to help."_

 

Ryan saw the figure of the man move closer, waited until he was sure he had a decent shot, then fired his gun four times. Usually, he would have only needed to fire once, but given his current state he figured his aim might be a little compromised.

 

The man keeled over slowly, only two of the bullets hitting vital spots and one of them missing entirely. Ryan slumped against the tire, exhausted. "All clear," he panted, and a few minutes later, Gavin wound his way through the miscellaneous machinery and rushed towards him, hands immediately searching for injuries.

 

"Ryan, are you okay? You look- oh." Gavin stopped suddenly, not having immediately noticed Ryan's injury in the dim light. "Oh god. Ryan, you... You..." He stared at what was left of Ryan's damaged arm, his brain not entirely able to reconcile the shortened appendage with any sort of logic.

 

_Ryan can't be hurt like this, he's... he's Ryan._

 

"Oh, that? Yeah, I've noticed," Ryan replied, giggling a little hysterically. Dimly, Ryan realised he was probably going into shock, and that he needed to get back to HQ - specifically the infirmary - as soon as possible.

 

"Where's..." Gavin made a vague gesture at the space where Ryan's left hand should have been.

 

"Got caught up when I pushed that guy into the brick saw. No saving it." Ryan indicated to the body draped over the saw. The machine had finally given up and stopped its metallic whine, too congested with slowly congealing blood and flesh to continue rotating.

 

 _"Where's what? What got caught up in a saw? Answer me, you fucks!"_ Michael's panicked voice crackled in their ears.

 

"In a minute Michael, I've gotta get him out to the van first- c'mon, Ryan-" Gavin heaved the older man's good arm over his shoulder, staggering under the sudden weight. They lurched unsteadily out of the construction site and towards the van parked across the street, the engine already running. Michael had thrown the back doors open for them, glaring furiously at them from the front seat.

 

"If one of you assholes would bother telling me what the _fuck_ is going on, I'd really appreciate it!"

 

"Ryan lost his hand." Gavin bundled the wounded agent into the van, setting him down as gently as possible on one of the bench seats.

 

Michael's eyes became glued to the bloodied stump of Ryan's left forearm, uncomprehending. "He _lost_ it? It's not a fucking phone, you can't just accidentally leave it somewhere and forget about it!"

 

"Got cut off on a table saw," Ryan muttered.

 

"What the fuck? How the hell did this happen? Why the hell did you say you were fine when _half your fucking arm's been cut off_!"

 

"Hate to be a pain, but can you yell at me later?" Ryan asked, words slurring slightly as he sagged against the side of the van. "I think I need to pass out now." And he promptly did.

 

"Jesus fucking Christ," Michael said shakily, turning around in his seat and putting the van into gear. "Gavin, strap him down and close the doors, we've gotta get him back to HQ."

 

Gavin nodded, already having done the former. He yanked the back doors shut and buckled himself in as the van peeled out onto the street, already going several miles over the speed limit.

 

~* * *~

 

"Man, that's so _weird_." Gavin nudged Ryan's brand new prosthetic hand gently, as if it would shatter on contact. "Can you feel that?"

 

Ryan hid a smile and let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes, Gavin, for the _fifth time,_ I can feel that."

 

He flexed the fingers of his new hand lightly, marvelling at the dexterity. Functionality-wise, it was almost exactly the same as the old one, although it was a little different on the aesthetic side of things. All in all, he was incredibly lucky that the Agency had already built a fully functional prototype of the prosthetic. It might not be as pretty as the final product would be - Ryan knew they were working on making it look like a completely normal hand - but all the technology behind it was sound.

 

With a smile, he settled back against the pillows of the infirmary cot. He'd been there for the past few days, recovering from the grafting surgery that had gifted him with his new appendage. This was the first time since the van had screeched into the parking bay at HQ that Gavin had seen him, and the younger agent shook himself, shoving aside his fascination with the technological marvel that was Ryan's prosthetic.

 

"I want you to tell me what happened."

 

The older agent paused. "Gavin, I don't think-"

 

"I need to know," Gavin insisted, grabbing Ryan's real hand and squeezing.

 

"Can't you just hack into the Agency's system and find the report?"

 

"No. I want you to tell me."

 

Ryan sighed and ran his prosthetic hand over his face, the texture not quite close enough to skin to fool him. "There were two of them left. They'd split up and one of them got the jump on me, ended up pinning me against the casing of a brick saw. He had my arm stretched out over the saw blade, and I couldn't get him off me. So I shoved my arm down on the saw to throw him off balance." Gavin recoiled in horror and Ryan smiled grimly. "Hey, it worked. I mean, yeah, my hand was gone, but at least then he was off-balance enough that I could get free and push him onto the saw. I shot the last guy because I didn't really need to keep my location secret anymore, and then you showed up and took me to the van."

 

Gavin swallowed before he was able to reply. "I thought I told you not to go around hurting yourself on purpose," he said, voice wobbling slightly.

 

"And I told you that that wasn't an option," Ryan told him gently, sitting up and taking both of the younger agent's hands in his. Gavin flinched a little at the foreign feel of the prosthetic fingers gripping his own. "Gavin, I had to. If I didn't do what I did, that guy would have overpowered me and cut my arm off anyway, and I wouldn't have had the element of surprise that I did. I would have died."

 

Gavin took in a shuddering breath and Ryan pressed a brief kiss to his forehead. "It's okay, Gavin. I'm still alive, I'm still able-bodied, and in a few weeks, once the doctors and scientists have finished all their trials, I'll still be an agent. Nothing's changed. Except..." His voice dropped low and he grinned conspiratorially at Gavin.

 

"I envision some very interesting handjobs in your future."

**Author's Note:**

> Take that last line how you will; either that the prosthetic hand will feel all strange on Gavin's dick or that there's some sort of special inbuilt sequence in the prosthetic thumb or something, like if you pull it twice then it goes into turbo mode or suddenly starts flashing with different colours and playing Careless Whisper I don't know use your imagination
> 
> (It's 2 am and therefore this is hilarious don't look at me)


End file.
